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Round 1 of Editing… 85% Complete

The past 2 months, I’ve been editing the wind ensemble pieces I wrote last year. Under the generous guidance of The College of New Jersey’s wind ensemble director David Vickerman, they are starting to look a whole lot better (and will hopefully sound better, too!). The scores are just about ready to go, and I have to go over all the parts to make sure the formatting turned out okay, but I’m really happy with the changes so far. I’m vying to submit one to be considered for publishing with Alfred, ideally by the end of this summer. Alfred is a fantastic publisher of educational music, but my scores must be up to Alfred’s pristine standards, so time will have to take a back seat to quality.

Whenever I hear people discussing a large project they are working on, this oddly (though appropriately) phrased question typically comes up: “Are you married to it?” Not usually used in jest, it is an honest probe at the willingness of the author to be open to changes if they need to be made. I’ve learned that it’s better to write expecting there to be changes and to get more opinions than my own about the quality of the work. I’m often quite stubborn about how I want something to be or sound, but now can a little more easily be persuaded to do otherwise by another well-trained ear or eye, which is likely better for everyone involved.

Thanks for stopping by! As a reminder, you can always subscribe to my posts via RSS! I’m planning on making this site a little bit user-friendlier, so don’t be alarmed if the navigation bar changes. I also want to change my theme to something that spreads across the whole page instead of has that gray background… If you know of anything, let me know! As a thank you for sifting through my thoughts, please enjoy this video on how to compose, performed in true form by the late Danish pianist/comedian Victor Borge.